Hello, today I want to do Episode 2, and I want to talk about The Dreaded Connie Buzz, that you probably have read about it, and some other general issues about the motorcycle. I wish I could report that the Connie Buzz is all a myth but unfortunately it's not. The motorcycle does have a lot of vibrations through the frame and up to the handlebars and at highway speeds it definitely buzzes the handle bar, and our hand does go numb after a while riding, but, I don't want to make it sound too bad, it's not something that bothers me to the degree that I dislike the motorcycle, I like the motorcycle and I can live with the buzz and there are some things on here that the previous owner spoke, but one thing in particular, that there is one way towards fixing that buzz.
Okay, this is the item to which I was referring, it's fairly unobtrusive and you might be wondering what the heck I am talking about. I am talking about this, this which was installed by the previous owner and I didn't think much about it when I bought the motorcycle, I didn't realize how good it is, is a Throttlemeister Throttle lock and it's a wonderful thing to have, especially on a long trip down the interstate or a highway where you don't have any stop and good traffic because you can lock the throttle at a particular rpm and take your hand off with the throttle arm, give your hand a rest, switch back and forth between the two handle bars and I can't imagine now taking a long trip without this; this item, it's wonderful to have and I will demonstrate how it works here.
When you are cruising along at a particular rpm, you have to quickly remove your hands from the throttle which I am not going to do exactly like I would have done when I am riding it. So, you rev it up a little bit higher than you want it, moving up and crawling quickly turn, lock it into position. Now it doesn't lock it so tightly that the throttle can't be moved, if you need to give it a little more throttle, you can. But it locks it into position you set it at, if you need to reduce the throttle, you can do so also and that is important because you go up a hill, you are going to have to get a little more throttle, go down a hill, you have to reduce the throttle, works very well though in actual use. You don't want to be using it where you might have to come to stop or anything or stoplights or heavy traffic, but, on wide open roads it's wonderful and it goes a long way towards eliminating or reducing the importance of The Connie Buzz coming to the handlebar because you can take your hand off, periodically give it a rest, stretch it out, it's wonderful.
And you may notice here too that I put these foam pad grips on hoping that they would do something to minimize the buzziness coming through the handle bars, they don't really. I like the fatter grip anyway so I left them on but they don't really do much to stop the buzz, it still buzzes right through, they anyways cost $9 new so what the heck. Hard to put on though, had to really stretch them over and slip them up to get them the squeeze over. But not much use for eliminating buzz. Okay one other thing I wanted to talk about is the windshield. When I was looking for a motorcycle, I was thinking about sport touring style and I like the BMW motorcycles. I thought I wanted a motorcycle with a tall windshield to deflect the blast off my face. I was concerned about the Concours because I knew that the windshield didn't go up that high, I look over the windshield and I was thinking about possibly buying the Concours and getting a taller replacement windshield but I discovered soon after having a Concours that I don't want a taller windshield, this is perfect as it is because it does a good job of deflecting the blast over your head, depending on which helmet are you using - it seems to be more important which helmet I wear, you get some buffeting but that's much less objectionable than having to always look through a slightly scratched plexi-glass windshield with bug splattered all over.
I am 5 foot 7" and when I sit on the motorcycle, I am looking right over the windshield, it's perfect, this is what I wanted. I didn't know I wanted it when I got the motorcycle but this is better than a windshield separately to look through. And people have complained about this distortion, there is a lip here that causes distortion of your vision as you look through that lip but it doesn't bother me because I very rarely look at that angle. They say you shouldn't anyways, you should be looking straight down at the front tire or just a yard or two ahead of the front tire, you are probably not riding your bike properly. I rarely have to look at that angle and it's really not an issue for me. I like it the way it is. I like to look over the windshield, it deflects the wind over my head well enough that it doesn't bother me.
Okay, let me just give you a slightly better view of the lip I was talking about. This is the stock windshield, of course, you can buy after market windshields that don't have this lip, but so far, it's not a problem for me. The windshield used to have a thick semi-transparent rubber, white rubber U channel all around the edge of the windshield that I removed because dirt, and bugs, and stuff are going to get stuck under there and it was also a visual distraction, just having that thick channel right under your eyeballs as you are peering over the windshield bothered me. I think the buffeting is a little bit worse now that I have removed it but it still doesn't bother me and I prefer to have that U channel off the bike. And I will see if I can get that shot through the distortion so maybe you can see what I see; you are driving along and you need to look down, this is about at my eye level, that's where I see when I am riding, you see I am seeing - I see that the top of the windshield doesn't even show up in the viewfinder, it's just under, but at my eye sight - well there I guess I am not leaning far enough forward, leaning forward with my hands on the bars like I would when I am riding, that's about what I am seeing, that top edge of the windshield is right at the bottom of my peripheral vision. And then if you look down, yes it's distorted. But so what? I mean, how often do you need to do that, not often for me, and even if you know when I do, I can still see well enough to avoid it. You shouldn't be staring that steeply down towards when your bike, you should be looking at your head where you are going. And as I have mentioned before, the windshield works fine for me.
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